"This includes forum images taken in a National Park (according to the Protected Areas Act, SANParks holds copyright for any photographs that are taken in national parks, except for those who have paid the fee for commercial photography.)"

I think the forum part may have a leg to stand on, but doubt it, as it is pretty much public domain unless copyright requests are attached or superimposed on the pics, IMHO...

As for using pics taken yourself in SANPARKS for commercial gain, there is NO WAY that can be justified as requiring a fee, and is impossible to police anyway! Ridiculous!

I think that part may have more to do with shooting documentaries etc...

I have removed links to all my photos as some butthead has taken my photos and copyrighted them as his own and is attempting to sell them as his own. I did get him shut down, but it is sad that the many have to suffer for the deeds of the few.

Choose a wish, find a dream, pick a wishing star: Let your hopes and spirits soar high and free and far. Believe in the impossible, then work and try to do

A good Samaritan emailed me as he was going to buy the photo of my lion and per chance saw it on my photography website and wondered who the photo actually belonged to (http://photographybygavin.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) and had already seen the photo on this persons site.

Anyway I had my attorney friend write him a letter and call him (his phone number was on the site) plus I sent him a bill for $1000.00 for a single use purchase of the photo and also filed a police report which my attorney told him that we would withdraw once the invoice is paid. He has since removed my photo but we have screen captures and the source code from the site. (Site is currently down)

As you can understand I cannot provide any info on this butthead until all the legalities have been worked through but I can tell you that there were only a few pictures on the site (less than 10) and nothing else that I would expect to have been taken by anyone with any skill. I think that he was building up a site that had little or no content.

As for removing all my photos off the web, I guess that is near impossible, but as I always provide links to photos on my site, I went to my site and renamed the directory and presto an invalid link and you will not see any of my photos on this or any site other than my photography site.

When I post pics to Webshots I make them small, no larger than 300 x 500 and only use 10% quality via Photoshop Elements 7, so the pics are less than 25k in size and put a copyright through the middle of it, so you can do damned little with that.

I posted high quality pictures on the SANPark site with a small copyright because I and everyone else on this site have a mutual interest in parks and wildlife and we all share, and it looks like the photo was stolen off here but cant be 100% certain.

I do not post quality photos on Facebook or Flickr as if you read the fine print you are actually releasing your rights of all photos to those sites.

Hope that fills everyone in, if you have any further questions I will answer them if I can.

Gavin

Choose a wish, find a dream, pick a wishing star: Let your hopes and spirits soar high and free and far. Believe in the impossible, then work and try to do

Quite a few members have had this problem including us, but were fortunate in the last incident that the company contacted us for permission and 'reimbursed' us for the use of photos - no unpleasantness at all.

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If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, or your intellectual property rights have been otherwise violated, please complete the online form by providing all the requested information.

Because I am an amateur photographer, I license most of my work with a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial license. People/non-commercial organisations can use and reblog my photos as long as they give me credit. Most people do so courteously. My photos have been used by museums, universities, a cancer research organisation and a couple of other non-commercial or charitable organisations.

I have very little experience (just once) of people misusing my photos.

Just as I post one of my favorite pic's on the eaglethread:- Birds, this topic comes to life again. Typically my kind of luck. I have been through this pirating topic but you know I took this picture to share with the worldand fortunately I don't earn a living from photographylike the professionals do, with all due respect. So all you pirates out there go for it, it's all your's.H. e

It cannot be made more or less for that matter but it can be altered to suit.- The universe.